3 answers
Benjamin
Student
Robbinsville, New Jersey
1
Question
Updated
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How do you balance taking advantage of opportunities in college without overcommitting yourself?
Throughout high school I consistently overcommitted myself to a plethora of diverse activities like robotics, marching band, and theater. How do I help ensure I'm able to prioritize personal health and success at a university that has such abundant oppurtunity?
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3 answers
Sabrina Boulware
barista
2
Answers
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Updated
Sabrina’s Answer
Balancing opportunity vs. overcommitment in college is really about being intentional, not just busy. A lot of people burn out because they say yes to everything instead of choosing what actually moves them forward.
Alejandra Castellanos
8
Answers
Updated
Alejandra’s Answer
Hello Benjamin.
This is an excellent question. Each school has it's own systems and only you know your priorities. Taking charge of your life is important in regards to what your GOALS are. If you are starting College soon, take a look at what you did in High School and what you gained from those commitments, including the impact those had in your mental, emotional and physical health, not to mention your relationships and yourself.
It's easy to be spread thin when overcommitting and get bored when you are used to a fast paced lifestyle when you suddenly stop all. My best advice is a personal exercise I perform every six months. Get your agenda -if you have one, I'm guessing you do either physical or digital-, and list all your activities on one side of the page. On the opposite side, think about and write down your "ideal schedule". The most important thing is not to forget to block in your 24 hours time to sleep, eat, take a shower and do your "chores" and the time you would dedicate to others, I usually do 3 versions, the daily, weekly and monthly one. This allows me to remember I don't need to see my family and friends every single weekend, I'm allowed to have time to myself just to rest, re-charge, perform self-care activities and still be present for others.
At the end of the day we only have 24 hours, your responsibilities as a Student would be the main ones, along with work if you had any -e.g a weekend paid gig or an afternoon one.
However, the key questions while doing that is... what do I gain from doing this? I woke every day at 5.30am because I go swim Mon-Fri at 6am for an hour, this helps me to complete my personal exercise goals; I get to work by 7.30am and until 4.30pm that's my responsibility as an adult. The afternoon are dedicate to personal projects -e.g. reading, writing, taking my dog out for walk, etc.- I try to go to bed at a reasonable hour as to ensure I have energy to do it all over again the next day. And even on the weekends I wake up by 7am to take advantage of my free days and perform all those random tasks needed, visit family and meet friends on a rolling schedule to keep healthy relationships and been present for those I love. All this to say... I chose my personal goals and use my time to achieve them in the order of needs Vs priorities. I hope this helps you.
This is an excellent question. Each school has it's own systems and only you know your priorities. Taking charge of your life is important in regards to what your GOALS are. If you are starting College soon, take a look at what you did in High School and what you gained from those commitments, including the impact those had in your mental, emotional and physical health, not to mention your relationships and yourself.
It's easy to be spread thin when overcommitting and get bored when you are used to a fast paced lifestyle when you suddenly stop all. My best advice is a personal exercise I perform every six months. Get your agenda -if you have one, I'm guessing you do either physical or digital-, and list all your activities on one side of the page. On the opposite side, think about and write down your "ideal schedule". The most important thing is not to forget to block in your 24 hours time to sleep, eat, take a shower and do your "chores" and the time you would dedicate to others, I usually do 3 versions, the daily, weekly and monthly one. This allows me to remember I don't need to see my family and friends every single weekend, I'm allowed to have time to myself just to rest, re-charge, perform self-care activities and still be present for others.
At the end of the day we only have 24 hours, your responsibilities as a Student would be the main ones, along with work if you had any -e.g a weekend paid gig or an afternoon one.
However, the key questions while doing that is... what do I gain from doing this? I woke every day at 5.30am because I go swim Mon-Fri at 6am for an hour, this helps me to complete my personal exercise goals; I get to work by 7.30am and until 4.30pm that's my responsibility as an adult. The afternoon are dedicate to personal projects -e.g. reading, writing, taking my dog out for walk, etc.- I try to go to bed at a reasonable hour as to ensure I have energy to do it all over again the next day. And even on the weekends I wake up by 7am to take advantage of my free days and perform all those random tasks needed, visit family and meet friends on a rolling schedule to keep healthy relationships and been present for those I love. All this to say... I chose my personal goals and use my time to achieve them in the order of needs Vs priorities. I hope this helps you.
William Vvuko
Retired engineer
233
Answers
Moyo, Northern Region
Updated
William’s Answer
Hi Benjamin,
You raise a very important question. Nature has endowed us differently: some people are talented in more areas than others.
It's important to balance between your different interests. One way of doing this is to master optimizing your time management. How we manage our time determines how much we achieve each day. It's a skill (an art). It takes shape through experience. At the level of practice, it's achieved in a progressive manner.
The other thing is getting your priorities right. To be effective and efficient, we need to focus on important things - these are things that contribute in a significant way to the achievement of our goals (both short-term and long-term). Sometimes the urgent things we deal with are not important. As such, we need to defer them to a later time/date. Only important things that happen to be urgent should be attended to in an urgent manner. It's also important to minimize the number of unplanned activities that break into our important routines. Ideally, all the endeavors we engage in should be planned. However, in practice, break-ins do occur and we need to manage them as best as we possibly can.
You raise a very important question. Nature has endowed us differently: some people are talented in more areas than others.
It's important to balance between your different interests. One way of doing this is to master optimizing your time management. How we manage our time determines how much we achieve each day. It's a skill (an art). It takes shape through experience. At the level of practice, it's achieved in a progressive manner.
The other thing is getting your priorities right. To be effective and efficient, we need to focus on important things - these are things that contribute in a significant way to the achievement of our goals (both short-term and long-term). Sometimes the urgent things we deal with are not important. As such, we need to defer them to a later time/date. Only important things that happen to be urgent should be attended to in an urgent manner. It's also important to minimize the number of unplanned activities that break into our important routines. Ideally, all the endeavors we engage in should be planned. However, in practice, break-ins do occur and we need to manage them as best as we possibly can.